Despite Low Tuition, Cost of Attending Community College Is Beyond Many Californians, Report Says

Chronicle of Higher Education 3/7/07

By Elyse Ashburn

Many Californians with low or even moderate incomes cannot afford to attend community college despite the fact that California's colleges have the lowest tuition rates in the country, according to a report scheduled for release today by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.

College affordability in the state is threatened by the rising costs of housing, food, health care, child care, transportation, textbooks, and supplies, according to the report, "California Community Colleges: Making Them Stronger and More Affordable." Tuition now accounts for only 5 percent of the costs of most community-college students in the state.

"This challenges one of California's greatest myths about access, that if colleges are spread throughout the state and tuition is kept low, students will be able to attend," said Patrick M. Callan, president of the public-policy center, an independent research group that promotes access to high-quality education and training beyond high school.

To help students cope with living costs, the report says, policy makers should focus on increasing state grants for nontuition expenses rather than keeping tuition abnormally low.

In fact, the report calls for modest tuition increases to support programs to improve students' persistence, completion, and transfer rates. The state's colleges waive tuition for most of their poorest students, so those individuals would not be negatively affected by fee increases, the report says.

The report also urges college and state leaders to step up efforts to make students aware of federal financial aid.

Only 15 percent of community-college students in the state who are enrolled for credit receive Pell Grants, which are the primary federal grant for low-income students. Nationally, 25 percent of such students receive the grants.

California's students are no less needy, the report says. Rather, the low tuition rates in the state historically have led policy makers and college officials to pay too little attention to providing and promoting financial aid. State leaders have increased support for financial-aid outreach in the last few years, and the report recommends they continue to do so.

The center's analysis comes on the heels of another report that criticized many of the state's policies related to community-college access. That report, by the Institute for Higher Education Leadership & Policy, at California State University at Sacramento, said that policies intended to improve access were working against degree-completion rates and other measures of student success